It was aboard a flight from Ahmedabad to Hyderabad six years ago that inspiration struck Peesapati Narayana when he saw a passenger using the delectable Gujarati khakra like a spatula to scoop out shrikhand. For this post-graduate in forestry management who had always been wary of plastic cutlery, it was a point to ponder: he wondered if he could make edible cutlery. "I tried to make a three-dimensional spoon by putting chapati dough between two spoons. But it got soggy very soon, especially when I put it in water," says Narayana. He began working on different combinations of flour and finally developed one that would not get soggy for more than 20 minutes even in hot liquid. One of the main ingredients in this combination is jowar (sorghum), which is an environment-friendly crop because it does not require as much water as rice and wheat do. Vegetable pulp-spinach, beetroot and carrot-were used to add colour.

What began more as a hobby in 2005 soon turned into a serious business proposition, enabling Narayana to quit his job as a scientist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Hyderabad. "For the first two years, my kitchen was the first laboratory. The next year, I did serious research, including devising machinery to produce commercially," recalls Narayana. It cost him more than Rs 60 lakh in developing the prototype machines, moulds and executing a pilot run. He had to sell his homes in Hyderabad and Baroda to finance his passion.

What began as a hobby turned into serious business, allowing him to quit his job as a scientist.

In 2006, he filed for a patent at Kolkata and expects to get it shortly. In the same year, he founded his own company, B.K. Environmental Innovations. He began retailing in November 2009 and achieved modest sales of Rs 2 lakh per month. But production was halted two months ago over some design flaws. The spoon could not hold enough food because the handle was relatively small and it did not have a ridge. Narayana now plans to introduce a whole range of cutlery as well as jowar-based snack foods under the brand name bakeys later this year. The total investment will be nearly Rs 3 crore for the first phase of production-five tonnes a day. The funds are coming from an investment partner; he is building an ISO 22000-compliant unit that will be fully automated and will produce more than 35 million pieces a day in a single shift."It's such a huge market that the total jowar produced in the country would be insufficient to cater to even 10 per cent of the market. We may have to import jowar or ensure that more farmers shift to jowar," he says. Sometimes success comes by the spoonful.